


Tempest

by DetectiveRoboRyan



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alcoholism, F/F, Post One-Night Stand, Self-Harm, There's no actual sex in this one, Was almost for rarepair week but i figured itd be too much, sex as self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 16:13:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10135439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveRoboRyan/pseuds/DetectiveRoboRyan
Summary: Lucina has never before been with a woman so like a storm.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Almost did something about Azura having weather powers. Intended to be for FE rarepair week 2017 but they have a no-dubcon rule and I figured Azura's sex as self-harm thing counted as dubcon, and it's best not to risk it.

The hangover is always worse when she skips dinner. It makes the mis-healed joints in her right arm ache like they do when it's about to rain, which throws her off, and after heaving the bile in her stomach into the nearest available place, she'll lie face-down on her low bunk and try to ignore the pounding in her head. Her room always reeks of stale alcohol and morning breath— or perhaps _she_ does— and it's a long, stumbling, shameful walk to get her sheets washed once she peels herself from the sheets that, by the smell, would lead one to guess she sweated whiskey onto them all night. Severa will chasten her for being sloppy and Inigo will try to cheer her mood with a few jokes and Owain will ask her if she needs anything, but they'll all wish she didn't do this so often while simultaneously knowing that if they were in her shoes, they may have done the same.

Her head pounds. What is her name? Lucina. How old is she? Twenty-seven. Where was she born? Ylisstol. Where is her army? Everywhere, nowhere, too far away to respond to her rallying call but they're all still alive, she knows it, and it is mere selfishness to think that they'd stay. Where is her army? Anywhere but here. The answers to her questions hurt when she thinks of them and when she cannot think of them she's had enough to make it stop hurting. It takes a little more every night.

Afternoon sunshine hurts her eyes. She does her drills in the practice yard with thoughts of Nohrian shadowberry brandy running through her head. After dinner, she tells herself. It's been a rough week. She's earned it. It'd be easier to just walk back to her bunk now and drain the whole thing, not because it tasted good but because it made the hurting sharpen into a spike and then melt away like acid, leaving her feeling raw and bloody in the cold air. But then she could feel them, could make herself cry and shout and pound her fist into wooden beams until they bled, and when it was done she'd be tired enough that she could close her eyes and sleep without seeing monsters in the corners of her vision and watching her friends and family die, over and over again, in her dreams.

The sunshine hurts her eyes. She thinks of shadowberry brandy.

Falchion strikes the wooden training dummy so hard her arms turn to rubber from the impact, blade lodged firmly into its side. She lets the blade go and the dummy falls to the ground.

Azura is standing with her elbows resting on the fence. She's in white, blinding in the sunshine, and she's bright enough that Lucina has to squint to look at her. Her head aches in an annoying reminder that she's successfully avoided drowning in her own vomit that day.

"You're working hard," Azura notes, sounding passive. She always sounds passive. Lucina knows it's false— she makes herself sound like she doesn't care because she's convinced herself nobody cares about her.

"You know me," Lucina replies. She's too tired to bother smiling. _Shadowberry brandy,_ she thinks. She makes herself smile a little bit.

Azura nods. She swings around the entrance to the ring, her slender hands tracing the grain of the wood. Her hips sway and the fabric of her gown brushes her shins. It's still bright, but the hems are fraying and it's getting threadbare where the seams are getting tired from constantly holding it together through wash after wash. Still, she's blinding in the sunlight. Lucina wonders if that's because she wears white or if it's because it's just the way she is.

"You ought to take a break," Azura tells her. She's standing an inch too close for it to be just a suggestion— this is insistence. Last time this happened, Lucina ended up staggering back to her bunk in her smallclothes, heart pounding so strongly she felt it between her legs, dizzy on the scent of the sky in the eye of a storm and drunk on the taste of heartbeat beneath her lips. Lucina is no blushing virgin by far, but she had never been with a woman so like a storm.

"Does this break involve spending the evening in your bunk?" Lucina asks, arching an eyebrow. She cracks her wrists and yanks Falchion out of the dummy.

"It could," Azura shrugs. "Though if you have a date with the brandy in yours, I understand."

Something in Lucina's core burns. The night with Azura felt like she was standing in the midst of a hurricane, her feet on the ground but standing in rushing water up to her knees that threatened to knock her down at any minute. The wind of her breath at once chilled and warmed Lucina's skin, her movement rolling like the ocean itself. Azura pretends she is beneath notice like rain dripping off eaves of a roof, but Lucina wonders what sort of person can think that after experiencing heartbeat like thunder rolling across the sky, motion like floodwater meant to push and sweep away whatever it hits, breath like wind that ushers in clouds and then rains, leaving miniscule droplets on sweaty skin. Physically it is satisfying but there is something about it that took Lucina's breath away— breath snatched in the fading winds of the storm. It left her shaking, unsteady on her feet, and yet feeling as if she'd just witnessed the sublime in all its terrifying and awe-inspiring beauty. Who would ever fail to notice Azura after that?

"There's enough to share," she says. Her mouth feels dry.

Azura's lips curl into a smile. Lucina has witnessed this enough that she knows it isn't real.

* * *

 

The brandy is forgotten the moment Lucina closes her door. Their lips crash together like waves against a cliff and Lucina is being swept out to sea with the tide; Azura's power is not in the way she wields a lance but in her words, how she sharpens desire into a blade and holds it to the throat of whoever she wants that night. Lucina has known people like that. They're dead now.

The thought of dead friends sends a chill through Lucina— it is enough that Azura, pinning her to the door, can feel her hesitation.

"Not tonight?" she asks.

Lucina shakes her head. She pushes past Azura and takes the brandy from her trunk. She uncorks it with a satisfying pop and takes a long drink.

"Just a thought," Lucina shrugs. "Don't trouble yourself."

Wordlessly, she offers the bottle to Azura. Azura hesitates, but sits down next to Lucina on the low bunk and takes a sip. She winces.

"Strong stuff," she comments. "I suppose the Nohrians would be serious about their liquor. What can you expect from a country where nobles shank each other for sport?"

"Weren't the Nohrians your family?" Lucina asks. It's not strong at all to Lucina. She needs strong in order to feel the buzz. Half the bottle will do. She'll save the rest for a bad day.

Azura laughs. It's so bitter Lucina can taste it like bile in her throat. "My family is dead, and I no better. Sometimes I wonder what my mother would think— knowing that her daughter is not only a political hostage, but a whore to boot."

She passes the bottle back to Lucina. Lucina takes it, and Azura stretches her arms over her head. Lucina says nothing.

"I fully expect that you'll be too hung over to remember this conversation tomorrow," Azura continues. "I won't judge. Everyone in this little army has their own way of dealing with things. I had a talk with Niles about it just the other night."

"Define talk," Lucina mumbles.

"That's fair." She shrugs. "It's exactly what you expect. The mushy part came later. A whole lot about being kindred spirits. He said we should meet up more often. He likes a woman with experience. I asked him if that was because he could make them do all the work and he rescinded his offer. I think I hurt his pride." Azura chuckles. That's the largest amount of words Lucina has ever heard her say. Lucina takes another sip from the bottle and passes it back. Azura takes a drink.

"Why do you do that?" Lucina ventures. "The sleeping around thing. It can't just be because you like the action."

Azura quiets. "You don't care about that," she replies, setting the bottle on the crate Lucina's using as a bedside table.

"I care about a lot of things," Lucina replies. "Nobody does anything without reason. Call it a silly leftover from my days leading an army, but knowing someone's reasons for doing something could be the difference between life and death."

Where are her friends? Died before she met them. Died before they could ever be born. Died young, too young. Clawed apart by the Risen. Crushed under collapsed buildings. Skewered on sword-point. Drowned in flooding rivers. Rotted in mass graves. Dissolved from the inside from the acid of the dead and dying. Hacked their lives out bit by bit with sickness. Shot with a dozen arrows. Bled out, slowly and painfully, while Lucina held their hand in hers and told them you won't die here, you'll be alright, and they just said just don't go, commander, don't go. The ones that lived scattered across the horizons and even the three that she could reach now were different, serving different lords and ladies, fighting another pointless, thankless war. Was she selfish, for wanting them home so she could make sure they were still alright? Was she selfish to want to see them grow and smile like she'd promised herself those years ago, when she was seventeen and the aunt that raised her was dead and the world was bleaker than it had ever been?

Probably. She chugs half the bottle and swipes the excess from her lip. Her vision swims. Lucina. Twenty-seven. Ylisstol. Anywhere but here. She hasn't had enough yet.

"There has—" she takes a moment to get her tongue on straight. "Has to be. I've dealt with people. Nobody does anything without a reason."

Azura shrugs. "A little more brandy and I might open up. We'll put this off another night. You're drunk."

"Give it another half-hour and I will be," Lucina says. "These things take time to kick in. You don't have to go."

"And what would be the point of me staying here?" Azura replies. She sounds like she's daring Lucina to argue. Lucina's head is getting foggier and she finds she wants to argue. Or cry, or have that night's breakdown about her dead friends and family and how terrible her life is, or whatever. Something tells her it'd be easier if she were dead and she tells it to shut up, Brad.

Lucina shrugs. "Want some?"

Azura takes her up on that offer. She takes a sip and coughs after it goes down. "You'll have to forgive me," she says. "I don't usually drink."

"So I'm special?" Lucina chuckles. "I understand if you're done for the night, though. I imagine you don't want to risk getting too drunk and spilling things you'd rather I don't hear."

Azura hums. "Aren't we perceptive."

"Actually, I'm usually not," Lucina admits. "I'm bad with sarcasm, and most metaphors. When I first met Selena, she told me she'd gotten arrested for grand theft when she was six and was going to be executed, but they put it off because she was too short for the execution block until she was nine, and then she'd gotten recruited into the army because of her particular thievery-related skillset. It didn't occur to me that she was making it up for at least a year. She mentioned a birthday party when she was eight and I asked wait, weren't you in prison then? And she laughed for at least an hour. Though she never did say it was explicitly false."

Azura snorts at that— actually snorts, then covers her mouth with her hand. "So today is special? Or is it me?"

"I'm not sure," Lucina shrugs. "I think it's because I know a lot of people like you."

Azura's not sure how to respond to that. She takes a swig from the bottle of shadowberry brandy and hands it back to Lucina. Lucina takes the bottle but doesn't take a drink from it.

"I meant what I said," Lucina says. "I do care. I do want to know. I understand if you don't want to share, but— you can understand my thought process."

Azura wants to brush her off, but Lucina doesn't sound like she's judging. She sounds concerned, honestly concerned, for Azura's wellbeing. Azura knows how to deal with judgement. This? This is new territory.

"Why bother?" she asks. "Did that one night really make you care this much? If that's the case, I'll have to check and see who else here can't have a simple one-night stand without dragging feelings into the mix."

Lucina shrugs. "Honestly, I don't know. I suppose it's just— instinct." Instinct was one word for it. It felt more like a feeling, a feeling of crashing waves and rolling thunder and wind that stings her cheeks, a whirlwind of a woman that left her reeling in her bunk and left with barely a word— the smell of rainwater in her nose and metal in her mouth. Sometimes storms are forgettable but sometimes they are so earth-shaking that one can feel the aftershocks at the slightest reminder. Azura is a storm and Lucina is the one standing up to her knees in the floodwaters, watching her roll past the horizon with her wind and her rain and her lightning and thunder. Perhaps Lucina was one of those people that couldn't have a one-night stand without dragging emotions into the mix.

Azura is quiet for a long time. She takes another swig from the bottle. There's not much left, but they can get more if they need to. Then she shrugs. "It's easy."

"Sex is easy?" Lucina repeats, frowning. In her experience it was anything but— it was complicated and all-consuming but during the end of the world it was a comfort, something that reminded her she was still alive despite everything. It was revelry sometimes, celebrating that the day had not killed her, and sometimes it was living life the fullest she knew how before certain death the next day. As a young adult it was tossed around among her friends, the ones that were adults, but it was never easy. They all understood the weight behind it. Hearing that Azura thought it was easy felt strange.

"It's just another dance," Azura shrugs. "But it's— well, what else can I do? I can't control who I've been fighting for, who I've been following. I have nowhere else to go and nobody else to turn to. I don't have a choice what my circumstances are and I'm pretty sure that if it weren't for Corrin and his peace crusade, I'd be stuck up some tower in Hoshido like a songbird in a cage, watching the little people get crushed in a war between two superpowers and doing my job for the royals, singing on command and never asking when I'll get to go home."

She takes a breath. "Sex is easy because I choose it," she says. "Nobody can tell me what I can and can't do with my body."

Lucina lets that sink in. "Doesn't it ever hurt?" she asks.

Azura laughs bitterly. "I wouldn't do it if it didn't."

"It's not supposed to," Lucina says.

"And you're the expert now?" Azura retorts.

Lucina hesitates. "It's not supposed to hurt," she says. "It's—" Not love, at least not romantic love— it's connection, celebration, living. Appreciating that you're not dead yet and embracing that you may die tomorrow. The epitome of youth in the midst of chaos.

"If it doesn't hurt then how do I know it's happening?" Azura finally says. "What am I supposed to do? How do I know it's really there and I'm not just— just slipping through the cracks?" Floating away, dissolving into puddles of rainwater that seep into the ground and vanish when the sun comes out. She's gripping her arm now, fingernails digging into her skin. There are bruises on the backs of her arms. Lucina can see it because her dress is sleeveless, cinched only at the sleeves and draped the rest of the way down, cut simply but Azura's slender figure makes it look elegant. It's fabric that's soft with wear and smells faintly like it was sitting in a massive bolt of fabric intended to be used for curtains or tablecloths, like making it into a dress was an afterthought.

And Lucina doesn't know how to respond to that. "You just know," she says, her voice hoarse. "There's— there's something that clicks when it's happening. Near the end, I think. The fact that someone else can make you move the way you do, feel the way you do, kind of sinks in and then everything that ever was makes sense. You feel so real and there and alive for a moment that it's almost a shame when the peak hits and then everything's a rush of sounds and feelings. That's at least how it's worked for me."

Azura considers this for a long time. She corks the bottle of brandy and sets it on Lucina's bedside table, then moves like she's about to leave the bunk. Her bare feet are nearly silent on the stone floor. Does she have shoes? But she doesn't reach for the knob— instead she turns back to Lucina, and moves so her arms are on Lucina's shoulders, and then they're kissing again. Lucina puts her hands on Azura's waist. Azura has one knee on the bunk and the other between Lucina's legs.  
  
 "Show me," she says.

For a moment she wants to. But she's half-drunk and she knows this is another of Azura's attempts to make it hurt.

"I can't now," she says. "I wouldn't be able to touch you like you deserve." It's a romantic way to say that she's going to have trouble moving her fingers in the right way. Azura deserves better than a sloppy drunk for a paramour, if only for the night, after Lucina's just promised her something mind-blowing.

Azura laughs. "It's not funny," Lucina tries to say. But Azura just shakes her head and pushes Lucina's hair out of her face.  
  
 "You have interesting notions about what I deserve," Azura comments.

And then she stands, and leaves, and takes the breath from Lucina's lungs as she goes.


End file.
